From the same novel that spawned John Woo’s Red Cliff comes Three Kingdoms, surrounding the legend of Zhao Zilong who became known as The Undefeated General. But do we need another hysterical – I mean historical – drama…?
(And no, it’s not about resurrecting that dragon – they haven’t found a way to bring back Bruce Lee… yet!)
Zhao, played by Andy Lau, is a commoner who joins Liu Bei’s forces in the hope of helping end the wars between the three kingdoms in China. With his courage and exceptional martial art prowess Zhao soon rises through the ranks, becoming of of Liu Bei’s five generals (who also include 70s Shaw Brothers star Ti Lung as Guan Yu) – particularly when he saves Liu Bei’s baby son from the forces of Cao Cao (in an all-too-fleeting cameo by Damien Lau) – a scene also shown in Woo’s Red Cliff, where Jun Hu played Zhao.
Several years later Zhao finds himself still fighting for new leaders, the country still torn apart by war. Deceived into a trap that brings him full circle to the outpost where his calling began, he finds himself up against Cao’s daughter Ying (Maggie Q, Die Hard 4.0, Mission: Impossible III, Gen-X Cops 2), and an inevitable showdown…
Guanzhong Luo’s 14th century historical novel, Romance Of The Three Kingdoms is said to be one of the four classic Chinese novels, alongside Journey To The West, The Water Margin and Dream of the Red Chamber. (And yes, I admit even I had to look up that last one…) Unlike Woo’s more recent Red Cliff, director Daniel Lee’s (Black Mask, What Price Survival?) script and direction does little to honour that novel, encompassing both too little of the source material, and too much of Zhao’s life span. (And it’s nothing to do with Lee’s loose take on the material, either, Woo was just as free with the details.)
In fact, the battle for Red Cliff itself is not even eluded to, perhaps due to Lee wanting to distance himself from Woo’s long promised and undoubtedly epic take on the novel. Yet by trying to show us how Zhao first became a legend, cover the battles he fought and bring us to his disillusioned end, Lee simply glosses over his characters, providing none of them with any depth to like, let alone get caught up in the sentimentality heaped on us.
I’ve begun coining the phrase ‘hysterical dramas’ (rather than historical) for films like this, the mounting levels of melodrama and hysteria having become so over-the-top. It’s something The Warlords did, which also starred Andy Lau, but did well, and Red Cliff, somehow, managed to avoid. Yet Lee even makes a mess of that. We don’t care about the one-dimensional characters, or what happens to them. He lazily inserts flashback after flashback to attempt to pull at our heartstrings, yet only infuriates as they often come within minutes of being originally shown. Gone are the days when we’d get a classic Woo cum Peckinpah flashback of friends in happier times, before seeing them blown to pieces one last time. You can’t help but feel Lee would have been better placed concentrating on the latter part of Zhao’s life.
It’s heavy handed, simplistic and somehow very patronising – I can’t help but feel like Lee is aiming his sights purely on the Chinese market, and that says something rather sad about how sophisticated an audience he considers them. At best it’s a misguided attempt to recreate the simplicity of the Shaw Brothers classics of the 70s that starred Ti Lung and Damien Lau.
It’s also strangely nihilistic. Having fought so many years and given up any happiness of his own, only to find himself in exactly the same out that his heroic journey began, now betrayed by his oldest friend, and even used as a pawn by the great strategist Zhuge Liang. This is the part of the film where the lead is supposed to find a resolution, a meaning for his life, and the true elevation of dying with honour (I hope I’m not spoiling the plot here) yet as with director Lee’s sweeping generalisations, this rings as hollow and unconvincing. There is no discernable victory to be found, let alone moral high ground. (Zhao doesn’t even honour his own words to die defending the outpost.) Could this be deliberate – probably not, and hardly has the desired result.
On the positive side, the action choreography by co-star Sammo Hung and fellow Peking Opera student Yuen Tak, who both attended the same school with Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao, is outstanding. (Even if the scale is dwarfed by Woo’s production several times over.) The cinematography is also impressive, the great, dusty, desolate golden-saturated landscape created by director of photography Tony Cheung mirrored in a main theme that is more than slightly reminiscent of a spaghetti western.
The cast, however, get such a bum deal with the script there’s little for them to sink their teeth into. Andy Lau, initially rather miscast as the young Zhao, is disappointing and rather unconvincing in the lead role. Just compare with his recent performances in Protégé, or even the similarly themed The Warlords – this is more an actor simply going through the motions, but with this script who can blame him. Similarly, Sammo Hung’s support is fine, but not exceptional.
Instead it’s Maggie Q, whose casting was heavily criticised when the film was released in Asia, who actually makes quite a promising appearance as the daughter of Cao Cao, as does Andy On as Zhao’s second-in-command Deng Zhi. It’s just with such a short amount of time devoted to their part of the story, we don’t see enough of them!
Yep, this might sound a bit harsh, but you’re better off trying to catch the theatrical release of Red Cliff while it’s still playing in cinemas. Overall this is a disappointing ‘historical drama’ that should be left to true fans of the genre.
Three Kingdoms: Resurrection Of The Dragon (cert. 15) is released today on DVD (£17.99) and Blu-ray (£24.99) by Icon Home Entertainment.
DVD details
Distributor: Icon Home Entertainment (UK)
Special Features include: The Making of Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon; interviews with Maggie Q, Andy Lau, Sammo Hung and Daniel Lee; trailers.
